Though Still a Target of Attacks, Self-Esteem Movement Advances

Santa Clara, Calif.--The apostles of a new educational movement
gathered here last month in the cradle of its birth to grapple with its
definition, to sing its praises, and to plot a strategy to spread its
message.

At no time did these advocates have any doubt about what their
message should be: The movement to enhance students' self-esteem is,
they said, the answer to the nation's educational woes, or at least the
foundation on which all other school reforms must be built.

"Self-esteem has come of age," Mary Weaver, director of the office
of school climate of the California Department of Education, told the
775 participants at the Ninth Annual Conference of Self-Esteem. "We
here must renew our commitment and make it a reality."

During the past few years, the movement to promote self-esteem in
schools and society has been the target of considerable ridicule and
scathing attacks. Garry Trudeau even used his comic strip "Doonesbury"
to lampoon the movement's message.

Indeed, many educators say that good teachers have always taken steps to bolster a child's sense of
self and that a formal movement was not needed to espouse the benefits
of enhanced self-esteem.

Increasingly, though, self-esteem advocates are confidently carrying
forward their "social vaccine" from the accepting climate of California
to the nation at large.

And while it is still dismissed by some as "new-age fluff" and
"yuppie evangelism," the role of self-esteem in promoting positive
change is gaining wider currency, especially among educators.

Evidence of the movement's gaining popularity can be found in many
quarters:

A growing number of districts, schools, and teachers throughout the
country have begun offering both formal classes and informal programs
in an effort to bolster their students' self-esteem.

The booming industry that has developed in the wake of the
movement's birth has spawned hundreds of books, curricula, musical
programs, and training packages, many for use in the classroom.

A year after the California Task Force to Promote Self-Esteem and
Personal and Social Responsibility released its report, similar task
forces have emerged in 50 of California's 58 counties and in the states
of Louisiana, Maryland, and Virginia. The governors of Arkansas,
Hawaii, and Florida and state legislators in Minnesota and Maine are
considering state studies or legislation.

Also in the past year, more than 30,000 copies of the California
task force's report, "Toward a State of Esteem," have been
distributed.

Fifty chapters of the California-based National Council for
Self-Esteem have cropped up across the country.

"It's gone bananas," said John Vasconcellos, the assemblyman from
California who wrote the legislation that created the ground-breaking
task force. "It's really become a movement in more of a way than I ever
expected."

Adherents have championed self-esteem as a "social vaccine" against
educational failure, drug abuse, alcoholism, teenage pregnancy, crime,
child abuse, and welfare dependency, among a host of other social
vices.

It has been called the "key to rebuilding community" and a "vision
for developing our human capital to make America competitive
again."

Best of all, self-esteem programs are cheap, say the movement's
boosters, who argue that enhanced self-esteem can lead to increased
productivity, a widened tax base, and a reduction in the need for
costly social programs.

"This is the key to community development, the key to self-worth,
and the key to balancing the budget," Mr. Vasconcellos said. "And it
works."

While interviews with numerous academics revealed a range of
opinions about self-esteem and its social applications, critics say
there is a glaring lack of evidence to support claims that it is a
cure-all.

Many said they feared that the benefits to be gained from enhanced
self-esteem were being promoted like a dangerous snake oil.

"I perceive the whole movement to be diversionary," said Harry
Specht, dean of the school of social welfare at the University of
California at Berkeley. "On the one hand, it's not socially pernicious.
On the other hand, it detracts from some socially useful approaches to
social problems."

Indeed, critics in California say the movement has already taken its
toll in that state.

They note that, at the same time the state is reeling from deep
budget cuts in education and social spending, schools are being
encouraged to use this year's $6.3-million state "school-restructuring
fund" for self-esteem programs.

"The state government cuts money for kids on [welfare]," Mr. Specht
said. "On the other hand, they put money into this self-esteem
nonsense. That's infuriating. If you want to create low self-esteem in
a child, let him go hungry."

While some experts like Mr. Specht dismiss self-esteem seminars and
curricula altogether, others are more willing to acknowledge its
benefits.

They note that self-esteem enhancement can provide an initial, if
short-lived, boost of confidence that may propel students to achieve.
Also, they say, if properly integrated into teaching, techniques to
promote self-esteem can encourage students to try harder.

The problem, they agree, is there is little evidence either way.

Low self-esteem has been found to be a common denominator among
dropouts, criminals, drug abusers, and other social failures, observers
say. But, they add, it is just one factor, and its relative
significance is not known.

One of the movement's most persistent critics, Joanne Jacobs, a
columnist for the San Jose Mercury News, suggested that adherents could
have latched onto any number of traits found in high achievers, such as
the ability to write well, but absent in those who fail.

Said another critic who served on the California task force, David
Shannahoff-Khalsa: "We may as well have been looking at whether people
are happy or not. Sure, if people are happy, they may do better in
life, but can you build a curriculum around that?"

A book published by the University of California and containing
research reports commissioned in conjunction with the state panel's
work states, "One of the disappointing aspects of every chapter in this
volume ... is how low the associations between self-esteem and its
consequences are in research to date."

The book, entitled The Social Importance of Self Esteem, goes on to
dispute asserted links between low self-esteem and child abuse, teenage
pregnancy, crime, welfare dependency, and alcohol and drug abuse.

In education, one of the reports in the book found, self-esteem
accounts for only 3 percent or 4 percent of the variation among
students' academic performance.

Mr. Shannahoff-Khalsa, a neuroscience researcher at the Khalsa
Foundation in Del Mar, Calif., who refused to sign the task force's
final report, points to studies of international math performance that
seem to fly in the face of claims touting the benefits of enhanced
self-esteem.

In results from achievement tests, South Korean students place near
the top, he noted, while American students place near the bottom. But
after one such test, he said, American students boasted that they would
do the best, and Koreans thought they would do the worst.

Another study, released last fall by Junior Achievement, indicated
that American students had more confidence in their education than
their Japanese counterparts.

He charged that the task force ignored its own and other studies,
and instead published "a lot of fluffy puff, a smoke screen surrounded
by a lot of quotations from famous people trying to build a case for
self-esteem."

"There isn't a lot of research," Mr. Vasconcellos admitted.
Self-esteem "is hard to define, hard to isolate, and even harder to
research."

But Neil J. Smelser, a sociology professor at the University of
California at Berkeley, contended that, while the evidence linking low
self-esteem to most social problems is thin, it is strong enough in
education to warrant a closer look.

"While you don't have anything like scientific proof," said Mr.
Smelser, who edited the research book, "there's no question there is
some legitimacy."

In fact, advocates are beginning to develop more sophisticated
measures to support their claims, readily admitting that efforts to
gain wider acceptance of their ideas depend on it.

"If we really think this is a social vaccine, we really need to look
at some measures," said Robert Reasoner, the superintendent of the
eight-school Moreland district in San Jose, Calif., and a past
president of the National Council for Self-Esteem.

While acknowledging that most of the supporting evidence is
anecdotal, supporters say their case is bolstered by the success
stories of those who have embraced the approach.

Six years ago, Mr. Reasoner said, he began implementing "esteem
boosters" into his district. Teachers and administrators were
encouraged to discover their own self-worth, he said, in an effort to
create a climate for students to achieve.

Efforts to enhance self-esteem were then launched in a variety of
areas, including involving students in setting discipline policy, using
more cooperative-learning techniques, having students outline goals and
achievements, setting firm parameters in which students can achieve and
recognize their own achievement, and adjusting grading patterns to
reward progress more than final results.

Since then, he said, achievement scores have risen by 10 percent,
annual vandalism damages have dropped from an average of more than
$1,000 per school to $187, and student attendance has climbed to 97.7
percent.

In addition, he said, 89 percent of the students now go on to higher
education, compared with 65 percent six years ago.

"Undoubtedly, there were many factors," Mr. Reasoner said, "but we
found that by focusing on self-esteem, we could make a real
difference."

Susan Cannone, president of the New York chapter of the self-esteem
council, said simple exercises she piloted in New York schools during
the 1988-89 school year had a visible effect from the first day they
were implemented.

Students were asked to tackle tongue twisters, and success elicited
rousing applause from their peers. They were encouraged to write
positive slogans on their schoolwork, such as "My reading is improving
every day" or "I am an artist."

"The children loved it," she said. "They come back and say, 'It's
happening. It's happening."'

"The impact comes from going in there, perceiving the children, and
conveying your perception of the total child and the wonder of that
child as a special human being," the former classroom teacher
continued. "The educator's job is to weave that wonderment into our
interaction throughout the day."

Bill Wotring, principal of Stone Elementary School in Belpre, Ohio,
said his self-esteem program helped get his school named to the Ohio
Association of Elementary School Administrators' top-10 list.

Stone Elementary is one of 5,000 schools in the United States and
Canada subscribing to the Power of Positive Students, or pops, program.
Based in Myrtle Beach, S.C., and founded in 1982, pops is perhaps the
largest self-esteem program in the country.

The program is based on three life skills--human relations,
communications, and coping--and five attitudes--belief in self,
self-confidence, high expectations, goal setting, and self-esteem.

Subscribing schools receive videos, textbooks, and workbooks that
present problem-solving exercises designed to help develop the three
skills and five attitudes.

Each month is devoted to one concept. Pre-printed slogans and
posters are provided. The message is incorporated into daily
announcements and classroom activities throughout the day.

Parents and teachers are also invited to participate in self-esteem
seminars and pep rallies to foster a more nurturing environment.

"Eighty-eight to 92 percent of success is due to attitude," said
Mike Mitchell, the executive director of pops. "This is a systematic
approach to developing and sustaining attitude."

The whole program costs $2,000, he said, but few schools spend that
much. The kits are sold in pieces, with most schools buying about $450
worth of products a year.

Observers said pops is one example of how the booming self-esteem
industry is becoming more sophisticated. Instead of targeting students,
it is increasingly trying to reach the wider environment around the
student.

It also stresses activities designed to foster achievement, not just
a showering of compliments, a method that only creates what Mr.
Reasoner calls "praise junkies."

Observers say the self-esteem movement has spawned a cottage
industry that is flooding the market with materials, many of them
targeted at educators for use in their classrooms.

The problem with many of the materials on the market, those both
inside and outside the movement concede, is that they are
worthless.

"There is an enormous amount of junk in the self-esteem world,"
admitted Hanoch McCarty, a professor of education at Cleveland State
University and a member of the self-esteem council's executive
board.

According to Martin Ford, an associate professor of education at
Stanford University, most programs provide one-time or once-a-year
seminars that make participants feel good for a few hours by pumping up
their sense of self-worth.

The problem, he added, is that, beel34lcause self-worth comes from
real achievement, not vice versa, the effects quickly dissipate.

"All you have done," he said, "is create a transient, pleasant
episode that may not add up to a whole lot in time."

Even the more sophisticated approaches that involve goal setting as
well as efforts to increase achievement and improve a student's
environment are greeted skeptically by many.

Roger Wilkins, a professor of American history and culture at George
Mason University in Fairfax, Va., agrees that low self-esteem is an
issue in the United States, especially for economically deprived
African-Americans.

But, he said, a child's "core of self-regard" must be built in early
childhood by his parents and reinforced through economic opportunity. A
school-based repair job, no matter how thorough, will not work, he
added.

"For people in a hole in this society, you can't say we're going to
have a self-esteem program and that's all," Mr. Wilkens said. "That
won't cut it."

Self-esteem advocates agree that parenting is a key, but they point
to studies that show school to be a major factor in the loss of
self-esteem among children and adolescents.

A study released in January by the American Association of
Uni4versity Women found that, in elementary school, 60 percent of girls
and 67 percent of boys said they were "happy the way I am."

Eight years later, however, 46 percent of boys and only 29 percent
of girls agreed with that statement, the study found.

What that shows, experts say, is not entirely clear.

But some say the results provide evidence that a demoralizing school
environment and insensitive teachers are draining the self-esteem out
of students.

"Self-esteem is not something we give kids," Mr. McCarty of
Cleveland State said. "It's what we have to stop taking away."

Still, Mr. Smelser and others said, teachers are naturally drawn to
the notion of self-esteem because they see it as an area of students'
lives they can affect.

"It's quite clear that teachers are in the trenches," Mr. Smelser
said. "They see so much evidence of struggling, of kids fighting with a
sense of failure or inadequacy, they are drawn to the salience and
importance of the issue."

"It is in the interest of [teachers] to identify the problems of the
world in psychological terms," he said, adding that they typically feel
powerless in the face of problems related to a student's health or
economic well-being. "They constitute a natural interest group."

Other observers noted that the proliferation of off-the-shelf
self-es8teem curricula easily meshes with some teachers' reliance on
prescribed curricula.

R. Hayman Kite, a former professor of education at Florida Atlantic
University who has completed a $1-million study on the relationship
between self-esteem and students' dropping out, concluded that teachers
are definitely a part of the problem.

"If teachers would sweat it out and teach [students] how to develop
relationships, the dropout problem would go away," he said. "Instead,
most classroom teachers fuss about having the time to do things like
this."

Added Rodney Skager, a professor of education psychology at the
University of California at Los Angeles, "It all has to do with good
teaching anyway."

Whether the importance of self-esteem will be embraced as
educational orthodoxy is yet to be seen.

Ms. Cannone of the New York chapter of the self-esteem council
characterized New York City's first self-esteem conference last October
as a bit of a bust. After sending out 15,000 fliers, the conference
attracted a disappointing 150 participants, she said.

"New York is a tough place to crack open," she said. "In New York,
the feeling is that this is just another fad, another passing fancy
that has no substance."

Even the national conference here attracted far fewer than than the
1,500 expected--mainly, its organizers said, because tight budgets
prevented districts from sending their teachers.

Still, they noted, the first conference nine years ago attracted 23
participants. Of 775 who did attend this year, about two-thirds were
from California.

Mr. Specht of the University of California at Berkeley predicted
that self-esteem would soon go the way of phrenology, hydrotherapy,
spirit channeling, and electric shock.

But believers see the movement as one worth pursuing.

"I've seen a lot of fads come and go," said Mr. Reasoner, who is
retiring this year after more than 30 years in education. "I really
believe this is far more significant."

Vol. 10, Issue 24, Page 1, 15, 17

Published in Print: March 6, 1991, as Though Still a Target of Attacks, Self-Esteem Movement Advances

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